Homecoming and Going
By ice rivers
- 629 reads
I don't know whether I'm coming or going.
I'm going home next week where there will be a Homecoming in my honor.
I haven't been home in three years.
Home is Rochester, New York....the flower city the home of Kodak and Xerox. The place where Rod Serling died and Louise Brooks, Frederic Douglas and Susan B Anthony lived. Suffragette City, where David Bowie was arrested for possession of weed...WHAM BAM THANK YOU Ma'AM. Where the Rolling Stones caused such a disruption during their first US tour that they were banned for life from ever returning.
Ra Cha Cha
Rochester has seen better days. Rochester even went so far as to win an NBA championship back in the 50's before the Rochester Royals moved to Cincinnatti and eventually to Sacramento now home of the Kings.
If you're from Rochester, you should know something about photography and movies. George Eastman had the bright idea of making photography available to the common man which he did and it was and still is although we don't need film anymore. Speaking of film and movies, once upon a time virtually all of the film used in motion pictures was produced in Rochester. Why not, George Eastman was buds with Tommy Edison.
Rochester still has Durand Eastman Park, the Eastman House and the Eastman Theater which is home for the Rochester Philharmonic and the gifted students of the Eastman School of Music. Once upon a time, we were the sister city of Toronto which is right across from us on Lake Ontario. We may still be related but there's no comparison now. Toronto is major league. Rochester is struggling to remain Triple A.
Rochester once had hundreds of thousands of residents who worked or had worked at Kodak. Many of them spent their entire careers literally in the dark. Many others were engaged in the production of cameras that didn't cost an arm and/or a leg. Cameras for the people. Photography for the people. People take pictures of each other just to prove that they realy existed and to prove that they really didn't miss it (whatever "it "was)
Who knew that one day people would be taking pictures with their telephones and those telephones wouldn't be made by Kodak nor would they use Kodak film nor any film at all.
Rochester didn't that's for damned sure.
And Xerox is another story.
Remember a time when you would say "make a 'Xerox' of that". Xerox figuratively meant 'copy'. We were entering an age of information. Xerox always claimed that information (not copiers) was the actual product of their business.
Information overwhelmed Xerox.
Other companies stepped in to pick up the slack.
Xerox was left behind.
Meanwhile the weather in Rochester continued to be cloudy. Rochester has less sunshine than any city in the United States which made it a natural place for the catacomb of darkrooms that made up Kodak at one time.
I finally had to leave Rochester as the future of the city looked as dismal as the weather. I was recovering from cancer at the time and my doctor encouraged the move.
Doctor's orders.
The past though; that's a whole different ballgame.
Wonderful, enduring friendships, bus trips downtown to the RKO Palace or Loews or The Paramount, sandlot baseball, music, education, Boy Scouts, altar boys, Dreamland Park, jack rabbitts, Sisters of Mercy, Knot Hole Gangs, Red Wing Opening Days, Aquinas football on and on and on.
On my return I wanted to go to see Red Wing game. The Wings will be out of town. Last year, they didn't play a single game in Frontier because of Covid.
Never Fear......
I've got friends and family to welcome me.
If American Airlines doesn't cancel my flight out of Charlotte. The Charlotte Airport is a hot mess at the moment. American Airlines flights are being regularly cancelled due to labor shortages within the company. We won't know for sure whether our flight will be cancelled until we get to the airport .
The Transportation Security Administration has notified American Airlines that due to very high levels of passenger activity, customers originating their travel from Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) may have to wait longer than usual to clear the TSA checkpoint. Also, please note international travel may require additional check-in time due to COVID-19 documentation requirements.
As a result, American strongly encourages all customers arrive at the TSA checkpoints three hours prior to departure. We may visit www.cltairport.com or the CLT mobile app to view real time TSA checkpoint wait times. Please plan accordingly and allow plenty of time for check-in and security screening processes.
I haven't travelled by myself by air in forty years. Lynn is worried about me getting lost as when we do travel, I just follow her. She has the tickets, the bag check, the passports, the cell phone. All of these items are items that I have a chance of misplacing or losing as I wander from gate to gate wondering where the hell I am.
Knowing that my trip was approaching, last month Lynn entrusted me with my first cell phone. Today, we've been practicing with it. I've texted. I've made a few calls. I've responded to texts and answered a few calls. It's cool if I don't lose the phone, I'll be all right.
I've even taken some pictures with the phone. I used to get so mad at people who took pictures with their cell phones in places where I as a photographer with a legitimate camera was banned from taking pictures. One such episode took place at the George Eastman house when I was prevented from using my camera to take a picture of Jeff Bridges who had come to the theater to talk about the freedom of expression known as photography and show off some his photography.
Now, I'm one of those guys with the telephone not the camera.
I've got to admit, that cell phone works very well.
More people are taking more pictures and the pictures are becoming more and more beautiful. Quality comes from quantity. The secret to photography had always been to be the person with the camera and to be in the right place at the right time. Now everybody's got cameras and increasingly every momnet is the right moment to take a picture of whatever is happening. Before we had to be choosy because we only had 36 exposures on a role. Now, of course, you can take 36 exposures in 30 seconds and erase all of them except the one that came out best. Yeah
I will definitely be going to beautiful Canandaigua Lake where my brother resides. My parents owned a cottage on the lake which they bought from my grandfather. I've been going to that cottage my whole life, at least the first 70 years of it. The plan was for me to buy the cottage when my parents passed away.
By the time they passed, I was looking to get out of Rochester so we sold the old cottage.
The old cottage was part of a "compound" that included two more cottages...one belonging to my cousin Moonyeen and the other belonging to my brother Deke. Moonyeen and Deke upgraded the cottages into lovely homes. I'll be visiting those homes next week if I don't lose my ticket and if the flight takes off if American Airlines can hiire enough people to get the bird in the air.
Moonyeen is 80 now and her husband Corky born on the same day as Moon in the same year in the same town is still with her at the lake and has been since they married at 18 although not always living at the lake. My Aunt Martha, Moonyeen's mom and her husband my Uncle Bill had moved into the cottage and made the first upgrade.
When I'm down at the lake, I'm gonna visit Crystal Beach where I learned to swim. I'm gonna take a swim and then stand in the water and look at the willow tree near the water. The willow tree that we always stand and look at when we go into the water. The willow tree that always looks the same in July regardless of the changes that have gone down in the previous fall, winter spring. The willow tree that makes time stand still and brings memories back into clear, clear focus.
I have a theory that every time I go into shallows of Crystal Beach and swim and look at the willow, I'm much handsomer when I get out. Handsomer and healthier.
I can't wait for that feeling.
Maybe I'll take my cell phone out into the water with me when I'm done swimming and beginning to stand there and look at the willow weeping and the way the water changes color every time that I move. Maybe I'll take a picture of that moment, capture it, prove that it happened. Maybe I'll make a copy of that image, turn it into a canvas. Hang that canvas in my house as a reminder of my old hometown when I get home to my new hometown in North Carolina just in case this is the last time.
Ya never know when the next time will be the last time.
I checked the weather forecast.
It's supposed to be cloudy all next week with a high likelihood of rain.
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